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political islam 391As for the ÈadÊth, it clearly contradicts the Book, a fact that ourhonourable scholars tried to circumvent by issuing their famous dictumthat ‘the Sunna abrogates the Qur"an’ which is, frankly, a despicablehermeneutical trick. What is even more detestable is that theyused this ÈadÊth to justify violence and force in prescribing what isright and proscribing what is wrong. To correct what is wrong by(only) your tongue and heart became labelled as ‘soft’ or ‘feeble’ andwas interpreted as a reflection of having weak belief. And afterhaving turned this upside down, the act of correcting ‘by your hand’,that is, by force and pressure, became the ultimate expression ofstrong belief. Needless to say that this turns the message of the Bookcompletely on its head, which prefers ease over hardship and friendlinessover harshness, as the sequence of actions demonstrates in thefollowing verse: ‘As to those women on whose part you fear […]ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds,(and last) [criticize them (severely)] 62 …’ ( Al-Nis§" 4:34). The ÈadÊthhas also often been used by our honourable scholars to give stateauthorities a free hand to use violence against what they (religiously)perceive as (politically) wrong. But the ÈadÊth is only concerned withhuman behaviour on a personal level. The Prophet (ß) was far tooclever to allow state authorities to interfere with an individual’s faultsand errors, as he—quite justifiably so—anticipated that this wouldturn any democratic rule into despotic rule where the ruling classwill be allowed to take the law into their own hands and turn it—under the pretext of ‘forbidding what is wrong"—against their politicalopponents. He also anticipated that to give political rulers thelicence to ‘forbid what is wrong’ would allow them to set up religioustribunals which sentence critics of the regime to death, masked underthe pretence that this will eradicate heresy, atheism, and free thinking.And indeed, this is what has happened: the accusation of takfÊrhas given the political and religious establishments freedom to confiscatethe property and possessions of so-called convicted ‘apostates’,and by hiding behind a façade of laughable accusations of immoralityand licentious lifestyles they have deemed it proper to destroy thehonour and dignity of their fiercest opponents. Thus, what the62See MS’s interpretation of this verse in chapter 5 where he makes it clear thathe does not support the common rendering of wa"·ribåhunna as ‘and beat them’. Inhis understanding any form of physical force, even of a very small degree, is forbiddenin the act of reprimanding women.